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Yes. It's too difficult to maintain. You have to hop through loops to get anything done, there's a bunch of different toolkits that aren't inter-compatible, there's a bunch of software that depend on these different toolkits, these toolkits are difficult to get to work together, everything becomes depreciated within a month (Kernel APIs change faster than a teenager, which is a huge turn-off), and countless other reasons. If there was some sort of standardization within in the kernel then more vendors would support it, but that's not the case.

well frankly windows is more comfortable for a ordinary user. everything is ready everything works fine. if you use signed device for Microsoft windows and signed apps then you ll get very low crashes on windows and i think windows is a nice experience for an ordinary user, and in servers also is good but Unix and Linux is more stable as statistics shows it however if we use windows as Microsoft recommend it we may get better stability from windows.
Linux is also a nice os i used it for 1 month as a client then i ve got no problem as a windows user except when you gonna use it as a professional user a power user installing different apps for example apps for monitoring a network servers and ... you ll get so much errors on dependencies none of apps comes with full dependencies except .ypm extensions which made by Suse thats a perfect packages.
so you ll see both has its own users. both are fine but Microsoft windows is comfortable and user friendly os.
i like both of em.
So i think if Linux works on GUI and installing softwares it will gaining more fans in future.

Near 99% of market share for linux user is made by people which choose to install their own OS (the remaining 1% came pre-installed)

99% of market share of windows user come from "get it with the new pc" or "I did upgrade the old one". (the remaining 1% is those who made their own rig)

Linux don't need "popularity"... it just need to the best OS available for those who like to choose... when people start to choose, (and the OS not forced in the PC with Windows/OSX) it will be popular.

It's kind of redundant when the usage is so low. People on here were arguing over the 1% allegation saying it's 5% or 10% or other ridiculous, redundant arguments.

The case is that the use is low and that developers are concentrating on the WRONG THINGS such as making desktops look pretty and cosmetics.

WHY NOT FIX BUGS AND WORK TOWARDS BETTER HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY?!?

There's network managers that are still complained about on forums which has occurred for over 10 yrs. There's video card support that is still slow as mollasses. There's hardware (especially printers) that has little support in Linux.

I think the popularity will stay low until these issues get dealt with.

MS doesn't really have to worry until it happens. However, there are inroads in some sectors and these are all due to economics/finances. People put up with things if the budget is stretched and Linux may be, for the most part, a cheaper alternative than a MS contract.

The case is that the use is low and that developers are concentrating on the WRONG THINGS such as making desktops look pretty and cosmetics.

Well like it or not it is the "bells and whistles" that do end up getting desktop users.

WHY NOT FIX BUGS AND WORK TOWARDS BETTER HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY?!?

This is where I would like to see a lot of work being done as well. Ya "linux supports the most hardware" lines that we have all heard throughout the years should be followed with a huge asterdisk. While it may have a huge data base of hardware the term "supported" is applied to hardware that has very minimal support of it's capabilities and features. If a product does have a feature and it can be used in linux all to often you have to revert to sticking some kernel parameters somewhere in the system in some varying startup script that varies from distro to distro. I realize that a lot of these capabilities are hidden from opensource developers from the manufacturers but never the less it is still discouraging to see for example a $100 - $300 sound card have the same feature set as a $5 sound card, same goes with specialty cards such as TV tuners and such. Quite simply there is too much having to fuck around with kernel params to get them functioning as expected.

Lets face it a lot of the "supported" hardware that linux has it geared towards networking or is for product that is long gone. There is a shitload of ISA hardware for example in the kernel and you haven't been able to buy a board that has had ISA slots for many many years.

Another issue is that a lot of the hardware out there licenses it's features from other companies such as Dolby Live, DTS Connect, etc etc and I can't see that improving anytime soon.

There's network managers that are still complained about on forums which has occurred for over 10 yrs. There's video card support that is still slow as mollasses. There's hardware (especially printers) that has little support in Linux.

Printers (and scanners) are actually one area where I think linux does a decent job at. With the exception of Canon printers pretty much every other manufacturer has support. HP, Epson, Lexmark all have linux drivers for their products

I think the popularity will stay low until these issues get dealt with.

You are right there. The average user just wants their product to work as advertised and the thought of them losing capabilities scares them off.

MS doesn't really have to worry until it happens. However, there are inroads in some sectors and these are all due to economics/finances. People put up with things if the budget is stretched and Linux may be, for the most part, a cheaper alternative than a MS contract.

Linux being "cheaper" really depends on the competence of the people administrating it and it offering solutions to a situation that are found in the other OS arena. While the initial cost may be cheaper it can quickly escalate into a "money hungry " setup under certain circumstances.